Live in the past, is mine. I will listen to things over and over because some songs or even podcast episodes, rewind me back to times where I felt comfortable in. I do sometimes poke my head out to see where things are currently in the present, but nothing around really makes me gravitate to anything current-day. But, then I just go back to my hole in living in the past.
People used to tell old people to get over it about them remembering things as they were all of the time. I’m understanding why they do that. Sometimes the present really truly sucks.
Thinking a lot of new technologies are stupid and unnecessary. Of course, at least in big tech, lot of them objectively are.
My favorite example: Copilot to read your emails for you and send responses automatically. Get two people with Copilot sending each other emails with neither person actually involved. Efficient!
Maybe this is why I constantly feel like no one is reading my emails at work anymore. I can put multiple points of information into an email and only get a response that acknowledges the first one.
People have been doing that long before LLMs, so i wouldn’t be too sure haha
That sounds to me like human behaviour, an AI would probably respond to each element separately. A lot of people when faced with multiple pieces of information or questions will usually respond to at most half, and often only one thing, in my experience.
Worked in a lot of service desks where I asked multiple troubleshooting related questions, getting a reply to only one of them is really common, the norm even I would say.
That’s almost unequivocal proof that a human did it. AI will restate each point and provide an answer, no matter how correct or useful. A human will get distracted, or omit or ignore points that they think are obvious or too difficult.
I think it’s more “Copilot can steal the contents of your emails to train its LLM.” (and maybe leak it when someone write a suitably crafted prompt.)
Or sold to advertisers…
Or your insurance company…
Or law enforcement…
Yeah, this is me too. Although, to be fair to my younger self, back then a lot of new technologies actually were notable improvements over the previous tech, and older people were missing out by not trying them. I’m talking about going from cassette tapes to CDs, things like that.
Nowadays the new thing really is just worse than the old thing. E.g. going from a desktop environment to “the metaverse.” Those of us who didn’t embrace the metaverse were not just sticking to our old cassette tapes; the metaverse really was stupid as hell.
The meta verse has 500 users, total, worldwide. Out of 8 billion people. It’s not exactly a popular new tech.
AI on the other hand, fits the description much better. It is very useful, and people who reject it out of spite are missing out. Sure, it’s being shoved down our throats in literally every product, whether it makes sense or not, I get the sentiment. But rejecting it completely makes you miss it’s useful applications.
What’s your use case thst you find it useful?
Boilerplate code, translation, text grammar correction, taking and summarizing meeting notes, debugging of network issues, interview role play…
I have some experience but my attempts at using it for network debugging have been less than iimpressive. It’s able to give a great history/summary of the issue but when it comes to generating troubleshooting steps or an actual resolution it just spits out a one-size fits all generic answer.
Our attempts at using it for summarizing meetings haven’t been particularly great either but that may just be very boring, repetitive meetings lol.
Gemini in particular helped me greatly debugging a Thread (IPv6) issue with RA and SLAAC, giving exact commands and diagnostic requests.
For meetings work really well, I can concentrate on the content and not on taking notes. Of course if there is something really critical I will note it down on a paper. Then I need to spend just 5 mins reviewing the AI notes to make sure nothing is hallucinated, generating a summary and sending it over. What used to take me maybe 30 minutes now takes 5. With 4 to 6 meetings a day it add up fast.
It also helps my writing in foreign languages sound more natural, suggesting changes and expressions that I know exist but they don’t come naturally for me.
Anything “supervised”, to prevent hallucinations from doing too much damage. I save 2h per working day, easy.
What about kids who edit videos on a phone. Laptops exist too you know, and the editing process would be a lot more enjoyable.
GenX and Millenials are the only two generations who are technically literate to know that. Your average GenZ or Alpha or whatever never learned to use a computer so it’s less scary to do it on a phone.
And then there’s also the extra friction. You would need to transfer the video files to the computer before you can even start. If you edit on the phone, all the files are already there, which is nice.
You could wait a few hours for the cloud to finally sync, or you could just go through all the USB-C cables that don’t support reasonable data transfer rates… either way, there are some serious bottlenecks in the process. Once you get past those, it gets better, but I guess all of that is enough to deter many people from trying.
Try to identify birds and trees. How did I go through life not being able to identify my natural surroundings?
My wife and I will happily stare at birds in the trees and rabbits in the yard.
I started playing a game with myself during my freshman year of college: how many species can I identify? At first I could only easily distinguish between birds and mammals. Then I was like oh well maybe I should bay closer attention to plants, then I realized how do I tell the difference between trees? Ok leaves are easy enough things to spot but why are some plants woody and some are… Wait how do I describe that? (Word I was looking for was herbaceous).
I took a lot of shrooms during that time, realized Im not built for an office environment and decided to study horticulture and botany even though it wasn’t offered at my university. I decided that I’d become a horticulturist and everyone around me probably thought I was smoking too much weed.
They were probably right, but I stuck to the plan regardless.
Ha. The two words I distinctly remembered learning while going on this journey are “forb” and “sedge”. The former being “I need nonwoody nongrass plants for my garden, what is the word for those plants?.” And the latter “how is this weed not considered a grass? It’s a sedge? What is that?”
flat out rejecting modern anything. I have zero desire to buy new phones, computers, new clothes, appliances etc… it’s ALL junk designed to fail so I buy again.
I just don’t now. I buy nothing and I don’t care. subscriptions? get fuked. replacing anything that breaks? hell no… I’ll fix it instead.
I used to like companies, but I’ve learned they are all criminal scum, liars and thieves and deserve very special treatment. they pushed me over the edge and I will never return and never stop voicing my distrust and dislike for all of them. even in the stores themselves when I have to go buy food… I’m very vocal about how overly priced and absurd everything is to the point where people look at me… I want that, I want others to actively think about it especially when they are in the stores too.
I’m essentially done with ‘society’ whatever the hell that means
Lol I’ve found myself doing this as well… “$6 FOR GUMMI WORMS ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS I THOUGHT THIS WAS A FREE COUNTRY.”
Preach!!! I tell everyone about enshitification and planned obsolescence. My examples are cereal and appliances… Take a look at the size of the cereal now and watch it for a few months… It won’t be the same when you look again but the price will be. Or appliances, you find the heating element goes out quickly on your dryer and replacement is really difficult. Maybe your phone slowed down even though you’ve done nothing different to it than surf the web.
But when I talk about these I feel so old.
Didn’t think I’d be telling my kids the TV is rotting their brains. Yeah, Looney Tunes wasn’t educational in the least but at least the shorts had plotlines. Stuff my kids watch (mostly on YouTube) will transition between scenes within seconds and there’s no point or resolution to any of it!
I started vetting youtube channels and downloading them for my kids. No ads, and it won’t auto select some random video with something offensive in it after it finishes. They ended up getting bored of it and spend their time on other stuff for the most part.
It’s not all garbage but man I wish they still had the block channel feature.
Its entirely unmanageable for parents honestly. It does a good job of appearing like its working though, which I’m sure fools a lot of people. Someone needs to setup some sort of p2p style video distribution platform so we can move on from youtube.
this is why I limit YouTube to 1 hour per week.
I fall asleep at every holiday party. My grandpa used to do that shit. Now… I’m tired and I don’t want to deal with anyone’s bullshit. Wake me when it’s time to say goodbye.
That’s basically me. Wake me when it’s time to:
- Eat
- Hand out gifts
- Go home
I’m not quite old enough for that to be normalised, but I’m definitely in the “playing with the kids” age range.
Not want to leave the house after 9-10 PM
Eat better
Prefer getting my clothes from Costco
Get excited about new appliances okay nevermind I actually got a blender as a teenager and loved it that doesn’t count.
But still it’s funny how much of a stereotype we all become in some small ways.
I’ve stopped buying clothes. I’ll live with what I have as long as I can.
Everything is so thin and cheap looking. I’m defo old.
I’ve been somewhat surprised with some band merch lately. The brand comfy colors’ heavy weight t shirts actually feel like they aren’t going to disintegrate in the wash.
Theres a local group that makes clothes. Its so much better than store bought clothes. And they are repairable!
Random noises when getting up from sitting.
Random noises when sitting!
Omg I started making old man noises young. I don’t know why I do it. Also all my joints pop when I stand
I don’t give a single shit what people think about me anymore.
And it stems from the constantly-reinforced experience that people almost always have no idea what they’re talking about.
For now, I’ve at least retained a basic level of decorum, but the line is blurring in a way that has me a bit frightened to be honest. Throw in some neurological degeneration and I totally understand why old people act like lunatics in public
Telling my son we need to go out. Its such a nice day, we can’t spend in front of a screen…
Back in the day, I just assumed the adults were saying that because they were old and had no idea what joys were waiting patiently, calling from the keyboard, controllers, etc.
Now, I know that they had seen far more than I could imagine, and that they knew all too well that those sun-dappled, happiness-brimming days outdoors were a rapidly diminishing resource… 😭
sun-dappled, happiness-brimming days outdoors
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.-Yeats
I am hopelessly fond of the romantics my self. Thanks for reminding me
Yeats has just got a sound, man. Some of his phrasing is so hauntingly lonely, but there’s a hint of hope.
eg
all disheveled wandering stars
live alone in the bee-loud glade
She stood in desperate music wound
The fury and the mire of human veins
etc
I grew up just as the 9-bit nintendo became widley available (and affordable) in Norway in the late 80s/early 90s. And got my first pc (a 486 DX) in 1994. Not a misspent youth, as we had a viciously steep footpath perfect for snow racers and a frozen area for hockey.
Summers were perhaps more misspent
Sneeze really loudly.
Yeah, what’s up with that? Is there some physiological change that causes it?
According to the folks on the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, it’s a learned behavior. My 11 year old son has started mimicking my husband’s ridiculous sneezes and his voice hasn’t even dropped yet so… yeah might be.
it’s fun
Ran out of gaff.
No, at least for some people they can control it. I told my loud sneezing husband who "couldn’t help it " if his sneeze woke the child, the child was his responsibility alone to care for and he found a way to sneeze normally.
With me, I can’t help it. And I always sneeze three times. If I could stop it, I would.
Waking up early on weekends. I gotta be up early for work on weekdays and its easier to stick to a consistent schedule.
And staying up late one night can wreck your sleep pattern for days afterwards. “Why are you tired today?” “Because I stayed up late three days ago!” Lol, ugh.
I get up at 5:30 for work, so I consider 8:00 a luxurious lie in these days.
Was trying to get hold of my kid yesterday, who didn’t wake up until 2pm because he’d been on the town the night before.
Gauging upcoming activity options for the day based on their likely effect on my lower back.
Me sitting in a restaurant right now at 3 pm eating dinner: Can’t think of anything
Walks. Like just for sunshine and air. It used to be I was out on a bike from sun up till sun down. You’d see the old people just walking and enjoying life and think damn, I’ll never be that lame. Well here I am. No bike. Just my legs. They weren’t lame. I was a dumb teenager. Walks are awesome.
Finally being the Luddite. I’m a software engineer and have always done well by jumping on new technology and making it work. But my company is really pushing ai and as far as I can see, most people are just taking longer to do worse. I end up cleaning up their mess and of course that’s not something LLMs can do
For example instead of taking an hour to upgrade a dependency then investigate the test results, now you can spend half a day screwing with ai to accept its 5 minute change without looking at the tests.
Ans by the metrics, they completed the task in 5 minutes instead of an hour, and no mention about whether the tests still pass. And then they escalate to me to get it working
Even worse, I’m dreading layoffs for the first time in years. Not just because of the economy and policy chaos, not just because I lost my “sponsor”, but ai …… not quite the way you expect though. Reviews are coming up and the people who screw around with ai instead of working have developed agents to go back through all of our online systems to present huge reports on their years activity. While I’m sure no one will read it, how can I compete with that?
Yep - development is not fun anymore. I’d retire 5 years ago if I could.
